Wednesday, March 07, 2007

An "environmentalist" argument for the seal hunt

The whole point of sustainability is to ensure that people can sustainably harvest the natural resources of the ecosystems within which they live. The harp seal hunt is an embodiment of that principle. That's just one reason why environmentalists should actively support and defend the seal hunt.

I lay out several more reasons why we should support the hunt and oppose the European boycott in my Tyee column today (the headline refers to me as an "enviro," which I've never called myself, but nevermind). I'll catch heck, as usual, but the column isn't called Dissent for nothing.

The key point, dissent-wise: Just as the excesses of postmodernist relativism have enfeebled the left over the past quarter-century or so, a corrosive strain of fact-distorting, science-hating, Gaia-bothering obscurantism has enfeebled environmentalism. This has had serious and unaffordable consequences.

Whatever legitimate concerns we might have about the way the seal hunt is conducted, there is nothing about it that absolves us of the duty of solidarity we owe the sealing communities of Newfoundland and Labrador. We might also remember they include these people.

More on the sustainability of the hunt here and here. The definitive study on the humane aspects of the hunt is here. Thanks are due Jim Winters of the Canadian Sealers Association for his guidance, and Annie, for her inspiration, and all the other good people back in Notre Dame Bay who put me up last summer.

6 Comments:

Another great column that cuts through the canned outrage nicely.It's even somehow strangely reassuring that the agents of commodified compassion are so blindly predictable in their snarling responses.

I remain however, concerned that Green Party of Canada has so slavishly fallen in line with this ceaseless pantomine.Here in Canada's north we 'could' send a Green party candidate to Ottawa with a little work but why bother?It's clear that the Green Party of Canada have sold sustainability out to the baying mob.How would you explain this Terry and how do we effect that change in policies in the Green Party?Is it even worth trying?

I regret to inform you that the level of debate on Tyee has been debased beyond all reason, despite the research. There may be good reasons to take issue with the research you posted but we'll never know.

Unfortunately, some of your support is coming from a few posters who are somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. This doesn't help either. What to do?

Iceclass: Sad story about the Newfoundland Greens. I don't know who's left after head office betrayed the swilers. The Terra Nova Greens were explicitly pro-sustainability, and pro-hunt. Don't know if they're still around. "Is it even worth trying?" to change the Green Party? Every member of the Green Party should try, at the very least.

Zalm: You regret to inform me that "the level of debate on Tyee has been debased beyond all reason"? Sincere thanks, Zalm, but that's been true for some long while now. As for your other quandary: If people on the "right" are openly declaring themselves to a cause of working-class solidarity, the defence of minority cultures, and the primacy of science and sustainability, this is a bad thing?